Frost added up the column of figures again to check Morgan's addition but made it yet a different total. He admitted defeat and signed the form anyway. 'Are you sure it's right this time?' he asked, tossing the crime return back to Morgan.
'Positive, guv,' replied Morgan. But he was always positive, completely undeterred by his record of past mistakes. He rubbed his jaw and winced. 'This flaming tooth doesn't half hurt.'
'It'll hurt a damn sight more when the bastard pulls it out,' said Frost, who hated dentists. The day wasn't going too well. The post-mortem hadn't turned up anything they didn't already know and Morgan's search of the flat in Clayton Street had failed to find the missing car keys.
Arthur Hanlon came in and flopped wearily into a vacant chair. 'You wanted me to check on the clothes Lewis was wearing at the match, Jack. I've traced a few of the people he travelled with on the coach, but they were so drunk that night half of them don't remember what the score was, let alone what anyone was wearing. I also traced the bloke who gave them lifts back home. He confirms he dropped Lewis off at the flat, but doesn't remember what time.'
'Great,' said Frost. 'Everyone's so flaming helpful!'
'And this won't please you either.' Hanlon handed Frost a fax from Forensic. 'The only blood on Mickey Harris's clothes came from the tom he put in hospital – nothing to tie him in with the dead Mary Adams.'
'Bloody Forensic!' muttered Frost, as if it was all their fault. He relit a dog-end and took a couple of drags. 'But I didn't expect them to find anything on Harris. This isn't his style. It's the boyfriend, Lewis, Arthur, I'm sure of it.'
'But his story checks out,' protested Hanlon. 'And Forensic found nothing on his clothes.'
'That's because the sod gave us the wrong clothes,' said Frost. He found the Forensic report and showed it to the DS. 'Look, traces of lubricating oil and automotive grease on jeans.'
'That's what you'd expect, Jack. He works in a petrol station.'
'He was going out that night with his mates, Arthur. He'd put clean flaming jeans on, not his working clothes.' The cigarette tasted foul, so he mashed it; out and lit up another. As he flicked through the Forensic report he noticed something he had missed. A note stating that the attached envelope contained; items found in the pocket of the jeans. What envelope? He found it in his in-tray and ripped it open, hoping to find something that would help. A couple of cinema tickets, a service till receipt for Ј10 withdrawn from Benningtons Bank in the High Street and a supermarket receipt for two hundred cigarettes. Disappointed, he was stuffing them back in the envelope when a thought hit him. 'He smoked a lot, didn't he?'
'What do you mean?' asked Hanlon.
'The ashtray in his flat, next to the bed. It was piled up with fag ends – about forty or more, I reckon.'
'So?'
'So when did he smoke them?'
Hanlon blinked. He didn't know what Frost was going on about. 'Does it matter?'
'Yes, it does flaming matter. When?'
Hanlon shrugged. 'Before he left for the match?'
'No. He left first. The girlfriend had a few hours to go before she had to leave, so she tidied up the place – he told us.'
'So?'
'She didn't smoke, Arthur,' explained Frost patiently. 'She hated mess. She wouldn't have left an ashtray piled high with fag ends. She'd have emptied it.'
'When he got back then, in the early hours?'
'But he told us he was dead beat and flopped straight into bed. It would have taken about two to three hours to have smoked all those fags even if you stuck them up your nose as well.'
Hanlon looked puzzled. 'I don't see where this is leading us.'
'Try this out for size, Arthur. He kills his girlfriend. When he gets back to the flat his mind's in a bloody turmoil; what the hell has he done? He can't sleep, so he lies on the bed and smokes himself sick. Some of those dog-ends had hardly been touched, a couple of drags and he stubbed them out.'
'Just because you lay in bed smoking, it doesn't mean you've killed your girlfriend.'
'Only if you're trying to be fair and logical, Arthur, which I am not. He did it, I bloody know it.' Frost snapped his fingers. 'Wait a minute!' He pulled the receipt for the cigarettes from the envelope, checked the date on his desk calendar then grinned triumphantly. 'At ten o'clock yesterday morning, Arthur, when he was supposed to be fast asleep in his little bed, he was at the supermarket buying two hundred fags… and he told us he didn't wake up until the afternoon.'
'All right… so he couldn't sleep and wanted a smoke.'
'You're missing the flaming point, Arthur. If he's awake at ten, he knows the bloody girl isn't back from the hospital where she's supposed to be working, and when he went out for the fags, he would have seen his car wasn't there, which means the story he told us was a load of flaming cobblers.'
'He might have thought she was doing the shopping – you don't have to go to bed the minute you get in from work.'
'Whose bloody side are you on, Arthur? I want this case out of the way. It's got nothing to do with the serial killings of the other toms and we're wasting too much time on it. Go and bring Lewis in. Don't arrest him, say I want to see him, but don't tell him what about… let's get him worried. Uncertainty, Arthur, nothing puts the wind up people more than baked beans and uncertainty…' He grinned to himself. It wasn't going to be such a bad day after all.
But the minute he walked into the interview room the nagging doubts began to fester. He had missed something, something right under his nose, but he didn't know what the hell it was. These bloody warning bells of his gave the warning without specifying the damn danger.
He sat in the chair and put the folder with the till receipt in front of him while Morgan fiddled with the cassette recorder. His mind was racing. He didn't have the bare bones of a sustainable case against Lewis. All he had was a gut feeling, and one lousy till receipt for cigarettes. If the case came to court without a confession, there was no way of proving that Lewis had gone out that morning and bought the cigarettes -the till receipt could have been issued to anyone.
What he needed was a confession, without it he was sunk. If Lewis insisted he was wearing his work jeans that night, there was no way of disproving it. And the car keys – why were they missing?
A tap at the door and Sergeant Hanlon came in with Lewis who was not looking the bundle of twitching nerves that Frost was hoping for.
'Have you caught the bastard?' asked Lewis, sitting in the chair opposite Frost.
'Not yet,' said Frost. 'But we know who he is, and with your help we'll nail him.'
'Anything,' said Lewis. 'Anything at all.' He dug in his pockets for his cigarettes, but Frost got in first, offering his packet and taking one himself. 'Thanks.' Lewis struck a match and held it out to light Frost's cigarette. Frost took his time, noting with satisfaction that the hand holding the match was trembling slightly. He steadied it with his own. We're getting to you, you bastard, he thought.
From the file on the table he took the typed copy of Lewis's statement. 'I realize it's upsetting asking you to go over this yet again but I want to make certain we've got our facts straight.' A quick glance at the first page. 'The last time you saw Mary alive was when you left for the match about five?'
Lewis nodded.
'When you got back in the early hours, you had no reason to think anything was wrong?'
'No – everything was as it should be!'
'You'd had an eventful night so you flopped into bed, went out like a light into a deep, untroubled sleep?'
"That's right.'
'You didn't wake up until late afternoon and that was the first time you realized she was missing?'
'Yes.'
Frost nodded, as if satisfied. And he was satisfied.
Things were going to plan. Lewis was digging his own grave with his mouth. 'Good. That checks with everything you've told us.' He smiled. 'People tell us lies, but we always find them out.' Lewis twitched a nervous smile back not certain how to take this. Now's the time to hit the bastard with the till receipt, thought Frost. He slowly opened the folder, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the man's face to watch his reaction when he confronted him with proof of his lying.
Frost never reached the till receipt. He suddenly found himself staring goggle-eyed at the calendar on the wall. The date. The bloody date! That was what the little bell in his head had been warning him about. The wall calendar told him it was the 8th. The calendar in his office had said the 7th. Taffy Morgan had forgotten to change the flaming date which meant that the till receipt was for the morning before the murder, not the morning after and had nothing to do with the case. His one lonely trump card had been shot fairly and squarely right up the fundamental orifice. He now had absolutely sod all.
He kept his face impassive as his mind whirled, trying to think of some way to retrieve the situation. He examined the till receipt and gave an Academy Award-winning satisfied nod as if it was of the greatest importance, then placed it face down on the table. He took some more papers from the file, including the useless Forensic report, and positioned them, also face down, alongside the receipt. Let the sod think I've got a full house, he thought, instead of a busted bloody flush. Lewis's eyes were following every move Frost made. Right, this was going to be one hell of a bluff. He didn't even have one card to play. He took a deep breath.
'This is the position. We've got witnesses, we've got discrepancies in statements, we've got conclusive forensic evidence. We now know who killed your girlfriend, Mr Lewis. There's only one thing we need to know, and that's where you can help us.'
'Anything,' said Lewis, eagerly. 'Anything.'
Frost took a cigarette from his packet and slowly tapped it on the table. This was the moment. This was make or break. He lit up, then smiled his most charming and disingenuous smile. His voice sounded fatherly and full of compassion.
'Why did you do it, son?'
He held his breath and waited. Lewis scowled at him, eyes full of hate, his mouth opening and shutting as if his anger was too strong to allow him to speak. Frost's heart plummeted. I've blown it, he thought. I've bloody blown it. He stared down at the table, his mind in overdrive. A strange sound. A sound that, at first, he couldn't place. He looked up. Lewis's shoulders were shaking. He was laughing, laughing away to himself as if at some secret joke, perhaps at the absurdity of the accusation. Frost blinked. It wasn't laughter. Lewis was crying, his body shaking as uncontrollable tears gushed down a face screwed up in agony. He covered his eyes with his hands and his sobbing was almost pitiful to hear. The other two detectives were staring, just dumbstruck.
Frost got in quickly. 'You killed her, son, didn't you?' His voice was gentle.
'An accident.' The words were barely audible.
'Tell us about it. Get it off your chest – you'll feel better afterwards.' Frost sounded like a member of the Spanish Inquisition begging a heretic to confess so the torture could stop and he could be burnt at the stake. But Lewis was now only too willing and the words poured out almost as fast as the tears.
'Things were getting dodgy between us for some time. I thought she was seeing someone else. There were these mysterious phone calls, stuff locked away in her drawer which I wasn't allowed to see. Coming back from the match that night, some of the boys had a go at the bloke in the off-licence and the cops hauled us into the nick. On the way there we diverted through King Street where all the tarts hang out and everyone in the coach started to yell and whistle and make obscene remarks at this prostitute, all slit skirt and big tits, picking up a drunk. I couldn't believe it. It was her… Mary… my bleeding girlfriend… the so-called bloody nurse…"
He scrubbed his face with his hands as if trying to wipe out the recollection.
'Go on, son,' prompted Frost.
'It was now all making sense. A couple of weeks ago I went to get some change from her purse and there was this key tagged "10 Clayton Street". When I asked her about it she said she'd found it in the street and hadn't got round to returning it. I told her that was where all the whores hung out, and she was all wide-eyed and innocent. "I never knew that," she said, all bleeding butter won't melt stuff. The cow. Going with all sorts of trash, and I was sleeping with her!' He raised his head. 'You wouldn't have a cigarette?'
Frost pushed the packet over and waited as Lewis took deep drags.
'I couldn't wait to get my hands on her. Your lot had us all in the nick, but there were too many of us. Suddenly the fuzz all sloped off because there was a fight or something, so I nipped down a corridor when no-one was looking and ended up in the car-park. I legged it round to Clayton Street and the first thing I see is my car, my Toyota, smashed to buggery. That was the last straw. I did my nut. I charged up the stairs and crashed into the flat, yelling and screaming at her. She grabbed for a knife to keep me off. We struggled. I got the knife away from her and kicked it under the bed. I don't remember exactly what happened then, but I must have had my hands round her neck as I banged her head against the wall. Suddenly she went all bloody limp and slithered to the ground and I sobered up fast. I thought God, what have I done? I carried her to the bed and tried the mirror trick, but she wasn't breathing. Then the bloody phone rang and I panicked. I snatched the car keys, hoping I could drive away and get home before anyone saw me, but the windscreen was shattered – it was undrivable. I wandered down back streets and I bumped into some of the blokes from the coach, staggering from pub to pub. I tagged on with them and they assumed I'd been with them all the time -they were too drunk to know otherwise. I got a lift home. You know the rest.'
Frost nodded. 'The clothes you gave us for testing? They weren't the ones you were wearing, were they?'
'No. I bagged them up and put them out with the rubbish. It was collected this morning.'
'We'll find it,' Frost told him. 'Searching through rubbish bags at the council tip is what my Welsh colleague was born for. He certainly wasn't born for altering the bleeding calendar…'
'Well done,' said Mullett grudgingly. 'A case tied up quickly with the minimum of manpower. It can be done, you see, if you put your mind to it.' Frost jerked a two-fingered gesture of acknowledgement under the desk, unseen by Mullett who was hurrying back to his office, anxious to let County know that Denton Division, under his leadership, had done it again.
Frost yawned. Too many nights with insufficient sleep were catching up on him. There was nothing that couldn't wait a couple of hours so he'd nip back home and get his head down before the next crisis.
But the next crisis was waiting for him in the lobby.
Bill Wells, filling in his overtime claim form on the front desk, grunted with annoyance at the interruption as a woman in her mid-thirties, uncombed straw-blond hair, a cigarette dangling from her lips, barged through the swing doors and dumped a plastic carrier bag on the floor in front of the desk.
'Can I help you, madam?'
'You'd bloody better. My little girl's gone missing.'
Wells kept his expression fixed. Here was one of those 'I pay my rates so you'd better bloody jump to it' brigade. He pulled the cap from his pen. 'If you could let me have some details.'
'Details? Sod the bloody details. I want you out there looking for her.'
Wells sighed. Just his luck to get this loud-mouthed bitch. Collier, who should have been here, was out with DC Morgan scavenging the local rubbish tip on a job for Jack Frost. 'Let's try and keep it calm, shall we, madam?'
'Calm?' she shrieked. 'Calm? Some bleeding pervert's got my kid and you want me to keep calm.'
'The quicker I get the details down, the quicker we can start looking for her. Your name please, madam…?' Ever since Vicky Stuart went missing nine weeks ago they had had a stream of agitated mothers panicking because their kids were late back from school. Wells looked up at the wall clock. Ten past five… school had been out less than two hours. The mothers were always insistent their kids had never been home late before, but when the kid eventually turned up, they'd been round a friend's house and had done it time and time again. '… and your address, please.'
'Mary Brewer, 2 Rosebank Road, Denton.'
'And the little girl – how old is she?'.
'Jenny. She's only seven.'
'Is there a Mr Brewer?'
'No, there flaming well isn't. It's going to be pitch dark soon and you're asking these stupid questions.'
'And when did you see Jenny last?'
'When she came home from school for her dinner. I haven't seen her since.'
'What school?'
'Denton Junior.'
Wells stiffened. Denton Junior. The same school Vicky Stuart attended. 'Have you checked with her friends? She might be round one of their houses.'
'What – all bleeding night? Don't be stupid. She went missing yesterday.'
Wells blinked in astonishment. 'Yesterday? Your daughter's been missing since yesterday and you've only just got around to reporting it?'
The woman glowered back at him. 'Don't adopt that attitude to me. I couldn't report it any flaming earlier. I thought she was staying with her Nan, but she wasn't.'
Frost bustled through the door on the way to his car. He gave a brisk nod to Wells.
'Inspector!' Wells wasn't going to be stuck with this woman.
'It will have to wait, Sergeant. I'm off home.' He pushed open the swing door.
'Missing seven-year-old… Denton Junior School…' barked Wells.
Frost froze. The door swung back. He slowly turned round and walked back to the desk. 'How long has she been missing?'
It was the woman who answered. 'All bloody night. Don't tell me I've got to go over it all again.' The cigarette in her mouth quivered with annoyance.
Frost's shoulders slumped. God, he could have done without this. 'You'd better come with me,' he told her, unbuttoning his mac. 'Send us in a couple of cups of tea,' he called over his shoulder as he pushed through the door to No. 1 interview room and nodded her into the chair so recently vacated by Lewis. This was like seeing the same film over and over again. Lewis's cigarette butts were still piled in the ashtray.
Mrs Brewer drummed nicotined fingers impatiently on the table, watching Frost settle himself down, arranging his cigarettes and matches in front of him. Who was this scruff they had foisted off on her? They said he was an inspector, but he certainly didn't look like one.
'Right, Mrs Brewer,' said Frost, ready at last. 'Let's have the details.'
'How many more flaming times? I've already given them to that silly sod out there.'
'And now you're going to give them to this silly sod in here so he can tell the other silly sods who'll be out half the night looking for your daughter.' She was getting on his nerves. 'The last time you saw Jenny was yesterday around midday when she came home from school for her dinner?'
'Yes.' She added her cigarette end to the pile in the ashtray, then rummaged in her handbag for another. Frost didn't feel disposed to offer her one of his so waited until she lit up before opening his own packet.
'And you haven't seen her since?'
'If that was the last time I saw her, it's bloody obvious I haven't seen her since.'
'Call me old-fashioned,' said Frost, boiling over inside, 'but I would have started panicking twenty-four hours ago, not now.'
'Stuff your holier than thou sneers,' she snarled. Tm a bloody caring mother. That kid wants for nothing. I didn't panic yesterday because I thought I knew where she was. She was supposed to be spending the night round her Nan's.'
'Why?'
'My boyfriend was coming round. He doesn't like kids. It was only for one bloody night.'
'Where does your mother live?'
'21 Old Street.'
He scribbled the address down. 'And Jenny never turned up at your mother's?'
'Would I be bloody here if she had?'
Frost took a couple of deep breaths to control his rising temper. 'So why didn't her Nan get on to you when Jenny didn't turn up yesterday?'
'Because I hadn't told her the kid was coming… she's not on the phone. Jenny just calls there and her Nan looks after her.'
'Old Street is right over the other side of town. Are you telling me you'd send a seven-year-old over there without any warning? Supposing your mother was out?'
'She never goes out… and if she did, Jenny would simply come straight back. She's always got coppers for the bus.'
Frost nodded his thanks as Wells banged down two mugs of tea. He passed one across. 'So how did you know Jenny never turned up at your mother's?'
'I bumped into her at the supermarket about half an hour ago. As soon as I knew Jenny hadn't been there, I didn't sod about, I came straight round here.'
Frost stirred his tea with his pencil. 'Has Jenny ever gone missing before?'
'A couple of times… she just wandered off, went to the pictures or something. But never overnight -she knows she'd get a bleeding good hiding if she did.'
Frost took a sip at the lukewarm tea and shuddered. Bill Wells hadn't brought the Earl Grey out for this woman. He pushed the mug away. 'We'll need a photograph.'
She opened her handbag and handed over a tiny dog-eared colour print of a solemn-looking child.
'She looks bloody young for seven,' he said.
'It's over a year old, but it's the most recent one I've got.'
Frost regarded it doubtfully. Kids changed a hell of a lot in a year. 'The school takes photographs every term. Haven't you got one of them?'
She shook her head, showering ash all over the table. 'I didn't bother.'
'I see,' grunted Frost. 'We'll have to get one from the school. What was she wearing?'
'Greeny blue dress, black shoes and a blue anorak.'
'Right.' He scribbled this down. 'I'll get things moving this end. You go back home and wait, I'll be round to see you later. If Jenny does turn up, let us know right away.'
She buried her cigarette end under the pile of corpses in the ashtray and heaved up the carrier bag which was full of shopping. 'Any chance of a lift home?'
'None at all,' said Frost.
Joan Boscombe, headmistress of Denton Junior School, was slipping on her coat when Taffy Morgan arrived. He'd returned in triumph to Frost's office with the bloodstained clothes Lewis had dumped, and was sent straight out again to find out what he could from the school. The teacher wasn't pleased to see him. It had been a busy day and all she wanted to do now was go home and unwind. 'If this could wait until the morning-' she began.
'Sorry, teacher, but it can't,' said Taffy, showing her his warrant card and eyeing her up and down. She looked very young to be a headmistress… an air of authority combined with an air of vulnerability. Very sexy, he thought. 'It's about Jenny Brewer.'
'Jenny?' She dropped down in her chair. 'She wasn't at school today. Nothing's happened to her, I hope?'
'We hope so too,' said Taffy. 'The thing is, she never returned home after school yesterday.'
The headmistress went white. 'Oh my God, not another girl.' The memory of Vicky still pained.
'We don't know it's anything serious yet,' said Taffy. 'When was she last at school?'
The pages of a register were turned. 'Yesterday afternoon… I remember seeing her leave.' She unbuttoned her coat. It was hot in the office. Taffy's eyes bulged. A lovely figure for a teacher. You can smack my bottom any time you like, miss, he thought.
'We need an up-to-date photograph. The mother doesn't seem to have one.'
Her lips tightened and she sniffed disapproval. 'The mother!' She swung round to a filing cabinet and pulled out a file. 'This was taken just before Christmas.'
A postcard-sized colour print showing an older version of Jenny looking serious and pale, and there was what appeared to be a bruise on her right cheek. Taffy jabbed a finger. 'What caused that?'
'She said she fell.'
'But you didn't believe her?'
'Jenny seemed to fall a bit too often for my liking. There had been other bruises on her arms and legs but Jenny always insisted she had fallen. We alerted Social Services. They were supposed to be keeping an eye on the situation, but…' She shrugged hopelessly. 'The mother is a fluent liar. They couldn't prove anything.'
'Who's been hitting her… the mother?'
'I don't know… but she seems to go in for violent boyfriends. I've heard some of the other mothers talking.'
'Do you think the mother cares for Jenny?'
'I think she tolerates her. Jenny needs love and affection and she certainly doesn't get it in that house. She's a very streetwise child for her age.'
Streetwise! thought Taffy. It was often best for kids not to be streetwise and think they could handle danger instead of running away from it. 'Did she have any close friends?'
'None that I know of. I'll ask around and let you know.'
'Thank you. We'll need to keep the photograph.' He slipped it in his pocket. Then he noticed her perfume. A heavy sexy unscholastic aroma. He wondered if she had a boyfriend. I bet she's a goer, he thought.
She stood up. 'Should we warn the parents?'
He shook his head. 'Not at this stage. There could be a simple explanation and we don't want to cause unnecessary panic.' He opened the door for her. 'Oh, one last thing – could you confirm she was wearing a greeny blue dress and a blue anorak yesterday?'
She frowned. 'No. She was in red – a red woollen dress.'
Morgan's turn to frown. 'Are you sure? We had a different description.'
'Positive. She usually wears the same old tatty things, this was new. She was flaunting herself in it.'
Taffy scribbled this down. He couldn't wait to get back to Frost to tell him. He hesitated. The perfume was working him up. 'Could I – er – give you a lift back to your place, miss?'
She smiled and shook her head. 'No, thank you. My partner will be meeting me.'
So the partner was to be the beneficiary of that perfume. Lucky bastard, thought Morgan, making for his car.
The girl's mother had slapped make-up on and done something with her hair. Her eyes, half closed against the smoke from her cigarette, narrowed when she saw it was Frost at the door. 'You found her yet?'
'Not yet,' said Frost. 'A couple more questions.'
She led him through to the living-room where an older version of herself, a woman in her late sixties, sat at a table, sipping a cup of tea. 'My mother,' she explained. 'Jenny's Nan.'
Frost nodded a greeting and sat at the table. 'Jenny never turned up round your place then, Mrs Brewer?'
'I never knew she was supposed to be coming.' She scowled up at her daughter. 'Why didn't you let me know?'
Her daughter shrugged dismissively. 'Why should I? I knew you wouldn't mind.'
'Of course I wouldn't mind. I just want to be told. If you'd told me she was supposed to be coming I'd have been round to the police last night.'
'So it's all my fault now, is it?'
'Yes, it flaming is. It certainly isn't mine.'
'I don't give a sod whose fault it is,' said Frost wearily. 'We just want to find her. It's dark, it's bloody cold and she's been gone too long.' He jabbed a finger at Mary Brewer. 'A couple of questions.'
She raised her eyes to the ceiling. 'More bleeding questions!'
'Yes, more bleeding questions,' snapped Frost. 'You told me Jenny was wearing greeny blue dress when she went to school yesterday. The school tell us she was wearing a red woollen dress.'
She tugged the cigarette from her mouth so she could cough better. 'A red dress?' she spluttered. 'The silly sods don't know what they're talking about. she hasn't got a red dress.'
'The poor little mite has only got one dress,' put in the Nan. 'When did you last buy her anything new?'
'She don't go without, and if she had a red dress I'd be the first to know.'
'Was she wearing the blue dress when she came home for her lunch yesterday?' asked Frost.
'I suppose so.'
Frost stared up at her. 'What do you mean, you suppose so?'
'I wasn't here when she came in for lunch. I was at Bingo.'
'You told me the last time you saw her was yesterday lunchtime.'
'I didn't actually see-her. I left her money for chips. When I came back the money was gone, so I knew she'd been home.'
'But you are sure she was wearing the blue dress when she went off to school yesterday morning?'
'She must have done, it's the only dress she's got. I've been trying to save up for something new, but money's tight.'
'Not tight when it comes to bloody Bingo,' said the Nan.
Frost knuckled the weariness from his eyes. 'Must have done?' he echoed. 'You saw what she was wearing, surely?'
'I didn't actually see her. I was still in bed. She gets her own breakfast.'
Frost stared in disbelief. 'She gets her own breakfast? A seven-year-old kid gets her own breakfast while her mother pigs it in bed?'
She folded her arms defiantly. 'You're here to find my kid, not give me a moral bleeding lecture.'
'Just for the record,' said Frost, 'when did you last see your daughter?'
'Night before last. She watched telly, then went up to bed.'
'As recently as that?' shrilled the Nan in mock disbelief. 'It's a wonder you'd still recognize her. Why did you pack her off to my place yesterday? I suppose that lousy boyfriend was coming round again.' She turned to Frost. 'That bastard was always hitting that kid – the times she's come round to me, crying her eyes out.'
Frost turned to the mother. 'His name and address?'
'No,' she shrieked. 'He doesn't want to get involved.'
'Well, he bloody well is involved,' yelled Frost back. 'Name and address, please.'
'Dennis Hadleigh, Flat 2, Peabody Estate.'
'And what does he do, apart from hitting seven-year-old kids?'
'He's a lorry driver.'
Frost scribbled the details down on the back of his cigarette packet and stood up. 'I want to search the house.'
'Search the house?' Her voice went up an octave. 'Do you think I've done her in?'
'She could have got herself locked in a cupboard, or something,' explained Frost. 'It has happened.'
'Don't you think I'd know if she was in the house?'
'You don't know where she is half the time,' sniffed the Nan. 'You and that bastard could be having it away while Jenny was dying in the loft.'
Hands on hips, the woman glared down at her mother. 'I've just about had enough of your innuendoes, mother,' she snarled. 'Either you keep your mouth shut or you get out of my house.'
Shutting his ears to the in-fighting, Frost went to the front door and called in the rest of the team who were waiting in cars outside and got them to search the house and the small back garden. Jerking his head for Morgan to follow, he returned to the two women. 'Which is Jenny's room?'
It was at the top of the stairs. They squeezed past Jordan who was heaving Simms up through a trap door into the loft. A small room, still decorated with Little Bo-Peep nursery paper. There was a single bed, neatly made with folded pyjamas on the pillow, a pink-painted chest of drawers on which stood a twelve-inch black and white television set and, on the other side of the bed, a white Melamine wardrobe.
Frost lit up a cigarette and parted the curtains to the sash window to look down on the small back yard where a uniformed officer, his torch cutting through the darkness, was prodding amongst the long, uncut grass. He shuddered at the feeling he had had so many times before. A cold, empty room. The room of a child who was not coming back.
Morgan pulled out the bed to make certain there was nothing underneath, then opened up the wardrobe where a few items of child's clothing swung from hangers. On the floor of the wardrobe were some down-at-heel shoes and a pile of well-read children's books.
Frost went through the chest of drawers. More clothes, all neatly folded, balled pairs of socks, handkerchiefs, knickers, everything he would expect to find. A nagging buzzing at the back of his brain was telling him he was missing something, but he couldn't think what it was.
Morgan had dragged the wardrobe away from the wall. 'Guv, look at this.' Hidden behind the wardrobe were some expensive children's annuals. They looked brand new. 'Get Fanny up here,' he told Morgan.
The woman came up and leant, arms folded, against the door frame. 'Found her in the wardrobe, have you?'
Touching them only by the edges, Frost held up the books. 'Did you buy her these?'
She fanned away cigarette smoke and squinted at them. 'No, I didn't. Where did they come from?'
'Stuck behind the wardrobe.'
'The little moo – she must have nicked them.'
'Perhaps,' said Frost, laying the books carefully on the bed. He snapped his fingers, suddenly realizing what it was that had been worrying him. He flung open the wardrobe door and waved a hand at the hangers. 'You said she usually wore this greeny blue dress… Is it any of these?'
She stared at the row of coats and cardigans and sniffed disdainfully. 'Do they look like flaming blue dresses?'
'When she came back from school the day before yesterday, was she wearing the blue dress then?'
'Of course she was.'
'You actually saw her with it on?'
'Yes. Why are you asking?'
'Because it's not here,' said Frost, 'that's why.' She didn't understand what the hell he was talking about, but sod her. 'Where would she have put it if it wanted washing?'
'In the linen basket next to the washing machine.'
'Go with her and see if it's there,' Frost told Morgan. He sat on the bed and waited, but he guessed what the answer would be. He looked round the room, bed made, pyjamas folded… The poor kid must have done all that herself, certainly not that slut of a mother. A thudding up the stairs as Morgan returned.
'Not there, guv.'
Frost yelled out to his team. 'Look out for a kiddy's blue dress… If you find any items of kid's clothing, I want to see them.'
He sat on the bed in the cold, scarf tight round his neck, and smoked some more, getting up to flick the ash out of the window, not wanting to mess up the kid's neat and tidy little room.
At last, dirty and dishevelled, the team filed in. 'The kid's not here, and no sign of any clothes," announced Jordan.
Frost nodded. He expected nothing else. 'Someone's got her, and I've a nasty feeling in my water it's the same bastard who got Vicky.' He jerked a thumb at the books on the bed. 'Put them in an evidence bag. I want them checked for prints. She might have nicked them, but on the other hand some nice kind dirty bastard of a man might have given them to her as a little present… "and don't tell your mum, love…" If she left for school wearing a blue dress and turned up in a red one, she must have stopped off on the way to change clothes, perhaps at the house of the nice kind man who gave her the books.' He felt himself go cold as he said it. 'My gut feeling is she's dead, but let's hope my track record holds and I'm wrong. Let's get a search going. It's freezing out there, so the sooner we start, the better.'
He clicked on his mobile phone and called the station. 'I want every available man in on this search, Bill – off-duty men as well.'
'Have you cleared it with Mullett?' asked Wells.
I'll clear it with him,' said Frost. 'And get the underwater team to stand by. We'll start dragging the canal tomorrow.'
The search was already under way as he drove back to the station. He could see the beams of torches cutting through the dark of Denton Woods. 'Shouldn't we start dragging the canal tonight?' Morgan asked.
'If she's in the canal, she's dead,' said Frost bluntly. I'm never in a hurry to find a kid's dead body.' He turned the heater up. It was cold in the car, but a damn sight colder out in the open. If the kid was out there… in the dark…
As they drove past King Street he noticed there were very few toms out. Not the cold that was keeping them in. They had heard about the body found the previous night. Too many bloody cases, too few men and too little time.
'Guv…' Morgan was dragging him from his reverie. 'Radio, guv.'
It was Bill Wells. 'Jack… Just had a phone call. A man reckons his eleven-year-old son has gone missing. The kid goes to the same school as the two missing girls!'
Shit, thought Frost. It never rains but it bleeding buckets down. He took the address. 'We're on our way…'